Space is a cold place
by viper47
Summary: Short fic about Lee on the Pegasus. He´s slightly fat, he doesn´t work out and he´s still thinking about Kara.


Spoiler: LDYB2

Disclaimer: right, we all know they don´t belong to me

Authors Note: Set in the one year gap.

Big thanks to Laurie for betaing and special thanks to Striker.

**Space is a cold place**

Lee sat down at the desk in his office and sighed slightly as he surveyed the paper stacks in front of him.

He truly didn´t understand how the paper work could have grown so rapidly although the Pegasus was not really doing anything beyond orbiting New Caprica.

Well if truth be told, maybe he had let things slide a bit in the last couple of weeks.

Reluctantly he bent forward to pick up the nearest report. He could feel the waistband of his trousers pressing into his body and he leaned back with annoyance.

Yet another area where he didn´t have the punch to get moving. Lee jabbed a finger into his belly and felt a slight disgust at the soft flesh he met.

He couldn´t even remember the last time he had been to the gym.

Sometimes he really didn´t understand himself. He had always taken pride in his physical fitness and he had always worked hard to make it even better. Nowadays everything seemed kind of pointless to him and he just couldn´t work up enough determination to lace his running shoes.

By now his body clearly showed his lack of motivation.

He grimaced and began to leaf through the report in his hands.

"Keep going like this, Lee and you´re gonna have to look for another call sign."

He groaned inwardly and tried to concentrate on his papers but after reading the same sentence at least three times he realized that he couldn´t focus on the words.

Lee leaned back in his chair and his mind began to wander.

He and Kara running through the corridors of the Galactica…

He wanted to push the memory away but like most times when it came to not thinking about her he failed miserably.

Lee closed his eyes and allowed his thoughts to go back to the time when they had been friends.

He could almost hear the rhythmic pounding of their feet and hear her strained breath right next to him. These moments had brought him as close to happiness as he could get in their constant battle for survival.

There had been laughter between them and banter and quite some fighting. Lee smiled a little. She had certainly kept him on his toes. She had stood up to him and never once taken any crap from him. There was no way she would have accepted him being too lazy to work out.

He could almost see her looking up at him with a smirk. "Get your fraking ass moving or we´re gonna have to oil you to get you into your viper. The chief would hate the mess."

So unlike Dee who had never once said a word in all these weeks. Maybe she had given him some reproachful looks but…

Lee banged his fist on the table. "Stop that, Lee!" he scolded himself. "Don´t go there!"

Dee was a fine woman and it was not justified to compare her to anyone else. In the back of his mind he knew that she deserved someone better than him. But they were in a dark place nowadays and being alone was even worse than being with the wrong woman. Space was cold out there.

He felt incredibly guilty about it but sometimes he wondered how much happier he would be if things had worked out differently.

If Kara hadn´t pushed him away…

If they hadn´t rescued Anders…

He gritted his teeth and tried to pull himself together. He really shouldn´t feel miserable about her, it wasn´t as if he had ever stood a chance.

She had always preferred any other man to him. Zak, even weird Dr. Baltar. And the one time she had let him touch her, had let him feel her soft skin and the strong muscles beneath, had let him fill all his senses with nothing but her, that one short moment, he had been nothing more than a replacement for Anders.

Anders. Lee felt old anger and resentment coming to the surface. A man Kara had known for a couple of weeks and still she had chosen to give up her military life for him and had followed him down to this wasteland people called their home now. Had even married him.

She had left with Anders and never once looked back. The day she had told him she would go had been the last time he had seen her. The last time he had spoken to her.

True, their friendship had been rattled but it still hurt that she would give up on it so easily.

Like it had meant nothing at all to her.

Lee buried his head in his hands.

At times he really did hate her.

FIN

Hmm... Review?


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